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Kinetic Announces $21 Million Series B Funding Round, Led by Menlo Ventures
Kinetic, an automotive infrastructure company that delivers digital maintenance and servicing for EVs and AVs through its network of service centers, announced it has secured $21 million in Series B funding, led by Menlo Ventures. Other participants in the round include returning investors Lux Capital, Construct Capital and Haystack Ventures along with new investors Allstate Strategic Ventures and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures. Kinetic will use the new funding to accelerate its business growth and continue to add top technology and engineering talent to its team.
Kinetic currently operates four service hubs across the nation—in Las Vegas and in Orange County, San Bernardino and Lake Elsinore in California—and plans to launch four additional hubs in the coming months to meet the growing demand for repair of the digital systems that power modern vehicles. The company offers scanning, programming and calibration of all modern vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) via its Kinetic Hubs, which are staffed by certified technicians, and through revenue-sharing agreements with traditional collision repair centers, dealerships and rental fleets.
Squint Raises $6M in Funding from Sequoia Capital and Menlo Ventures to Expand AR-Powered Technology Platform
Squint, the technology platform that uses augmented reality (AR) to optimize factory procedures and empower operators, today announced $6 million in combined seed and pre-seed funding from Arc, Sequoia Capital’s pre-seed and seed-stage catalyst, and Menlo Ventures’ venture studio Menlo Labs, along with several angel investors.
Squint uses AR to power an intuitive mobile platform for factory operators who need dynamic, contextual help mapped to the world around them. The Squint platform brings the shop floor binder – full of instructions – to life, providing operators with an interactive experience that is both engaging and effective, while increasing learning speed and knowledge retention. With these capabilities, Squint enables organizations to digitize standard operating procedures using just a mobile phone, with no hassle — not even an IT team – making everyday tasks like training, operation, and maintenance faster and safer.
Squint’s roster of customers, including global brands like Siemens and The Volvo Group, speaks to the value of their solution. Early customers report an 86% decrease in training time for new operators. Rachel Wood, the Learning & Development Site Lead at Siemens Spartanburg, explains, “We see Squint completely transforming our training process on the factory floor. It enables our workforce to learn with immersive spatial guides that boost productivity and, most importantly, encourage safety.”
RightHand Robotics raises $23 million from Menlo Ventures, Google
With its reinforced bank account, Somerville, Mass.-based RightHand plans to expand its business and technical teams and broaden its suite of product applications, the firm said. “The funds will be used to support our growth and in hiring people as fast as we effectively can,” Martinelli said. “We’re getting follow-on orders and we need to support those orders and extend the product line, both for projects in the U.S. and in Europe and Japan.”